Armstrong
by HouseaholicM
Summary: "You're the only person in the entire world who calls me Spence."


Reid peeked his head into JJ's office. "You leaving?" she asked, glancing at the clock.

"Yeah," he began. "Is it okay if I stop by your house to see Henry?... I haven't seen him in a few weeks. I haven't been thoroughly exercising my godparent duties, have I?"

JJ grinned. "I'll call the babysitter and tell her she can leave once you get there."

Spencer frowned a bit in confusion. "Will's not home?"

"He's in New Orleans this week, helping his mom move to assisted living. I shouldn't be here more than half an hour or so, though. I don't think you can manage to burn the house down in that amount of time, Spence."

Reid stuck his tongue out and waved as he retreated to the parking lot. He halfway suppressed a silly, happy smile that always came when he knew he would see Henry, who was just shy of uttering his first "mama". Reid liked to devise games and exercises that he knew would boost his godson's IQ and help him develop as quickly as possible, so he could start teaching him times tables, and then move on the geometry, and then to algebra and calculus... it was going to be a short ride to Caltech, as far as Reid was concerned. Reaching JJ's house, he knocked on the door. A short woman with kind dark eyes answered and let him in, gathering her coat and purse as Reid put down his own belongings.

"He's almost ready for his second nap, but he's been teething pretty bad lately and won't fall asleep," Maria coached, planting a small kiss on Henry's forehead as she handed him off to Reid. "He seems to like when you hold him, so you could try that. You good?"

Reid nodded, an pouting Henry in his arms. He locked the door behind Maria and headed towards the living room for today's exercise: song.

"Now Henry," he instructed in a gentle teacher voice, "we're going to teach you some jazz today. Louis Armstrong, to be exact." With Henry grabbing fistfuls of Reid's hair and cooing, he placed a dusty record onto the table and dropped the needle into the first track. "Louis was from New Orleans, in Louisiana, like your daddy. New Orleans was one of the first hubs for mainstream jazz and blues music, which despite its popularity as an improvised musical genre, is actually based strongly on rhythm and meter. Which is all math, Henry." He held the baby against his chest, swaying his body in time to the music. "Stop pulling my hair," he chastised, lightly taking Henry's fist inside the palm of his hand. "_You never know how many dreams I dreamed about you... _that's a trumpet playing. Louis was considered one of the very best of his time." Reid drummed the beat into Henry's back with two fingers, still holding him close. "Rhythm... see, the song just changed, the rhythm got faster. Faster rhythms usually denote happiness or intense emotion, like anger. It's happiness in this song, and hopefulness... _there's such a lot of livin' to do. There's music to play, places to go, people to see... everything for you and me. _Singing actually stimulates the development of neurons in charge of linguistic development more effectively than just speaking. But neither your mom nor I can sing worth a darn."

Reid hadn't realized it before, but his godson had relaxed into the crook of his neck and was now breathing warm baby-breath into his collarbone. He was also drooling into Reid's gray sweater vest, because it had already begun to seep through the oxford shirt underneath and onto his skin. He kept rubbing Henry's back, lowering the record player and his voice. _"I was the one who taught you all you know, your friends had to make me sing another song. Good luck may be with you... and may your future you won't fear, dear. There won't be another to treat you like a brother..." _His voice cracked under the strain of quiet, pressing his cheek into Henry's fine hair.

They stayed that way until the record finished, clicking repeatedly in its final blank track. Reid turned it over and lowered the needle once more, still swaying to the rhythm with a baby in his arms. He wondered what it would be like if he was a father, with a son to read to, like his mother read to him so often, even while she was sick. To teach him chemical structures with pieces of dry spaghetti, or, for now, wonder what his first words would be. He hadn't heard the door open and close, but he sensed JJ standing at the alcove. He opened his eyes to see her smiling, head tilted to the side. _A sign of empathy,_ he automatically profiled, smiling back.

"You got him to sleep," JJ noted, kissing the side of Henry's head. Reid delivered the limp and sleeping baby to her outstretched arms. "Uncle Spence must know some magic tricks even Mommy doesn't know to get you to sleep," she whispered, carrying him to the Pack and Play in the office. Reid straightened out his rumpled vest and shirt. Henry _was_ quite the drooler- a large wet spot remained on his vest, and the absence of his nocturnal heat left Reid feeling cold and disoriented.

"He's been teething terribly for the past few weeks. I can't get him to eat much, plus the pain makes him so cranky." She sank into the couch while Reid stood awkwardly. JJ patted the seat next to her.

"He likes me. I'm his favorite." Reid stretched his long legs onto the coffee table, picking at the drool stain.

"It'll come out in the wash, Spence." A silence. Somewhere between comfortable and awkward. "I didn't know you liked Louis Armstrong."

"When I was studying for my sociology degree, I took a course on music and the class system. The generations just out of slavery were the ones that invented jazz and blues. You couldn't write a paper on that without Louis Armstrong- he was born in 1900 or 1901, depending on which source you trust, which is only thirty-eight years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and taking into account the fact that most states didn't even moderately enforce the decree until quite a few years later-" JJ stifled a small laugh, "Uh, yes, I like Louis Armstrong."

_Be my life's companion, and you'll never grow old. I'll love you so much, you'll never grow old._

Reid absentmindedly tapped his foot on the table as JJ's eyes slipped closed. The record ended. He rose and began placing it back in the sleeve.

"You dance with Henry, but not with me?"

He turned around, a bit startled. JJ rose when he placed the needle back into the outer grooves, dust producing static in the speakers. It was simply friendly, the way that she wrapped her arms around a nervous Spencer, rested her head in his collarbone like Henry had, the way she swayed to the beat with Reid finally encompassing her with his long arms. It was one of those slow, old songs that conjured images of couples kissing for the first time in love, or marriages, or last dances. It stayed that way, too- Spencer and JJ, under the hypnosis of love songs on the record player. Eventually, Reid brought his hand around to take hers and move, albeit slightly awkward in Reid-fashion.

"Sometimes I wish that you weren't Henry's godfather," she shifted, "and that you were his father instead."

He stumbled for something to say, his mouth opening and closing several times, but finding nothing. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have told you that. Forget I said that." She laughed nervously, like she did when she was breaking bad news, or trying to shelter a family from horrifying details.

"JJ... how am I supposed to forget something like that?" They had stopped dancing, but hadn't broken away from each other.

"Spence, I know th-"

"You're the only one in the entire world who calls me Spence. Other people call me Spencer, or Reid, sometimes my mother calls me by different names entirely, but you're the only one who calls me Spence." He turned his head towards her, almost for a kiss, but simply readjusted his hold on her waist, aligning them back into the jazz, floating softly through the space between them.

**Agh! Ambiguous endings! Perhaps it will become a two part? A three part? For now, it's just a one-shot. But now that I've written it, I'm feeling more chapters.**

**In one of the first episodes ever, Reid celebrate his 24th birthday and he remarks to Gideon that JJ 'is the only one who ever calls him "Spence"'. The real inspiration for this short, though, is when Reid holds Henry for the first time and JJ asks him to be his godfather. All of the songs mentioned are by Louis Armstrong, and are all off of the vinyl record titled "Hello, Dolly!" I do not own these characters, nor the songs of Satchmo, however, all scientific and historical facts are, to my knowledge, correct.**


End file.
